


Broken in the Same Way

by PoliticalPadmé (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Post "Crisis of the Heart", Pre-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 16:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/PoliticalPadm%C3%A9
Summary: Companion piece toHer Names Tastes of Dead Ash. As the war rages on Padmé contemplates the corruption of the Republic and her husband.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Her Name Tastes of Dead Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10205744) by [saltandlimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes). 



Padmé brushes hair back from her eyes, shivering in the early morning mist. Coruscant never sleeps -- never stops -- but it's calmest at dawn, when the day population is only starting to wake up and the night population is stumbling to bed. It's not quiet, but it's quieter, and Padmé likes to watch the sun. Every planet has a sun, a star to keep it warm. Tatooine has two. Even after all these years Anakin gets colder before everyone else she knows.

She's up early, again, and was up late last night. Again. Another late meeting of minds in a seemingly endless line of meetings of minds. They talk and talk and talk and talk and nothing changes. Nothing even has a chance to change because they always agree to wait. To listen and to watch... and of course that s _ounds_ prudent and practical, and of course they don’t have any real _proof_ of corruption, or anything untoward at all... But the end result is nothing.

Padmé is exhausted of nothing.

"Would you like breakfast, Miss Padmé?"

She blinks, knocked out of her annoyance by the droid’s arrival.

"No thank you, Threepio." She is hungry, actually, but the thought of food makes her stomach turn. She's come down with a serious case of political stomach lately. Constantly hungry and constantly nauseous.

"Is Master Anakin expected home soon?"

Padmé blinks again. "I don’t -- what?"

"I beg your pardon, Mistress," Threepio -- somehow -- looks contrite. "I noticed you have not been eating or sleeping regularly the past few weeks. You sleep better when Master Anakin is -- near," he finishes, though she hears the unspoken 'here'. Padmé presses her lips together. Sometimes she thinks Anakin used magic, or more likely the Force, to give the droid insight. Or, given Artoo’s similar traits, maybe it's just force, or more likely Force?, of personality.

Sometimes Padmé wishes she understood the Force better. Other times she wishes she didn't know of it at all.

"I don’t know when they'll return,” she answers, and shivers again. The sun is big in the sky as it rises over the Jedi Temple. Big, but still far, too far to touch, and she can't yet feel its warmth. "Will you get my wrap, please? I'd like to go for a walk."

"Of course, Mistress. Shall I call a guard?"

"No." Her voice is sharp, and it's unfair to Threepio, and the guards, too, but she's as sick of guards as she is of politics. "I don't expect any trouble." The droid shuffles off to retrieve her shawl, to keep her warm if not safe.

 

Nowhere is truly private on Coruscant, especially for a well known Senator, but some places are closer. The old library tower has been Padmé’s secret refuge since she'd first returned to the capital. With her youth, beauty, and connections to the Chancellor she'd fielded many offers of alliance and friendship as soon as she took office. And while she'd every intention to use them to help and support Naboo and the Republic, it was nonetheless overwhelming. The death threats that soon returned, and never stop, isolate her all the more.

She was lucky to find the tower. Padmé is granted use of not only the extensive Senate library and Coruscant's Planetary Library that takes up two city blocks, but Yoda allows her access to the Jedi library as well. This much smaller, much older library was abandoned years before Padmé was born, any discs remaining are not only inaccurate but unnecessary. If they work at all.

But Padmé likes it. The huge spiral staircase that leads to a room encased in glass walls. The shelves of blinking lights, walls and floors covered in faded symbols, pieces of a language she thinks, but none she recognizes. Still, it feels welcoming, even familiar. The low light makes the dust sparkle as she walks up the stairs, surrounding her in tiny particles from an ancient time.

She climbs.

The tower is tall in a city full of buildings that reach for the sky. Padmé must look down to see the Senate building, the Jedi Temple, her apartment, the starport. All the trappings of her life here. Instead she sits in the very middle of the turret and looks up.

Behind the sun are a thousand thousand stars. A thousand thousand planets. How could she, or anyone, imagine such a government might function? That her voice might matter at all? She can't get her closest allies to agree on a course of action, how could she convince a Senate majority? All the people on all those planets? And what of the thousands of thousands with no voice at all? So many years later, Tatooine still looms large in her conscience.

_The Republic doesn’t exist out here…_

Her stomach lurches again as she remembers the heat of the suns, the harsh sand brushing her cheek as a small boy offered them shelter, dinner, and safety. Offered her everything he had, when he had so little. Nothing, really, it all belonged to his owners. Even he did.

_I’m a person..._

"Anakin..." she whispers, her hand moving to pull the pendant from beneath her dress. "Ani, I'm sorry…."

She misses the boy nearly as much as she misses the man.

Padmé brushes her fingers across the carving. His hands were so cold when he passed it to her, as cold as hers are now. He made it for her. To remember him, as if she might forget the child who risked his life to save her mission and by extension her people. And for no reason but she needed help. If he needed help now, how could she not give it?

_It will bring you luck…_

Remembering young Anakin’s words she recalls he didn't specify what kind.

Anakin is out there, somewhere up beyond the sun, amongst the stars. She knows he is hurting as much as she is. They didn't have enough time to say everything they needed to say after Scipio. They never have enough time. They'd clung to each other, their lovemaking as passionate and as desperate as their wedding night. But the war rages on. In the stars and in the senate and they both had to return to it.

They never have enough time.

Darkness exists, and consumes him, she's seen it. It twists at her heart. But what if what's wrong with Anakin and what's wrong with the Republic are the same? The Jedi are supposed to be in tune with the Force, and Anakin most of all, but what if they are all broken in the same way?  There's a corruption that's been eating at them all for years. It dragged them into war, into destruction and death and a dark that overwhelms. If only she could see it, if only she could find it, if only she could force it into the light!

Padmé closes her hand over the pendant. "I won't give up, Anakin, I promise. Not on the Republic and not on you. Not on us." Her mind whirs with plans, ideas. She'll suggest they speak with Obi-Wan. She'll push Bail and the others again. She'll suggest _they_ speak with Obi-Wan. She'll carve out time for herself and her husband. Her family has been after her to visit home. It would do Anakin such good to see them, to be mothered again.

"I love you," she says into sky, willing him to hear her from across the stars. "I won't let this war destroy us. I won't lose sight of what matters."

The city gleams in the morning sun. Tendrils of light hit the glass tower, bouncing off the remnants of symbols that cover the floor and walls. Surrounding Padmé in a wave of light as if to welcome her home.

She is finally warm.


End file.
